Like a pikeman deployed long after a battle gets underway, it feels like the arrival of Wargroove on PlayStation 4 is more than a little late. Launching nearly six months after its initial release on PC and Nintendo Switch, the cutesy strategy game is here at last, but we can't shake the feeling the war is already over. That's not to say anything about the quality of the game, but any buzz surrounding Chucklefish's likeable effort seems to have dissipated.

This is a shame, because we've thoroughly enjoyed our time with this deceptively deep tactical adventure. Wargroove is a charming, intelligent strategy game with a lot to like. It has you making all kinds of tactical decisions on the battlefield, and it finds a wonderful balance between easy to follow rules and hard to master strategy. Units each have their own ranges of movement, attack power, critical strike parameters, and strengths and weaknesses against other combatants. All this, combined with various terrain types affecting movement and defence, gives you plenty to think about, but there's more besides.

You can choose one of 12 commanders to lead the charge. Commanders are stronger and move farther than regular infantry, and they all have a unique special ability known as a Groove. Once charged up after attacking the enemy, Grooves can be extremely useful tactical plays; Mercia heals herself and allies surrounding her, Greenfinger summons vines that block the enemy's path, and Valder brings a basic unit back from the dead. As with other unit types, commanders have their pros and cons, and your chosen leader can quickly turn the tide of battle.

Your first port of call is a lengthy and challenging campaign, telling the story of Queen Mercia and her Eastward journey to thwart an evil necromancer and his undead army. You can easily spend tens of hours in the story mode alone, but there's also an arcade mode where you can hone your skills with every commander, and a puzzle mode in which you must vanquish the enemy in one turn. The game is stuffed with things to do, and these are just the single player, offline modes.

There's also online and local multiplayer for up to four players, and you can even create your own maps and campaigns to share online. You can't compete against those on other platforms, and unfortunately, the PS4 player base seems to be very slim. We struggled to find opponents, and matchmaking seems to take a long time, but online play works well once you find a match. Thankfully, user made maps are shared between platforms, giving you thousands of community creations to tackle.

No matter how you play Wargroove, it's all pretty compelling -- if a little hard to read at times. The game is about as clear as it can be, but the battlefield can quickly become extremely busy. With lots of units onscreen, as well as different terrain and the occasional weather effect, it can be a surprisingly tricky game to navigate. It can also take a while to get used to all the advantages and disadvantages of your troops. You have access to a lot of information at all times, which is very handy, but retaining that knowledge is another matter; there's a lot to learn. In fact, there's so much to take on board that not even the game's tutorial levels cover everything fully. To understand all the intricacies, you'll need to dive into the Codex and do some studying -- it's almost overwhelming.

While there's a lot to think about while playing, the moment to moment gameplay is lots of fun. Planning out strategies, like placing units so they perform critical attacks, and having it all go to plan is wonderfully rewarding. A lot of actions are accompanied by cute animations, which are a nice touch, but you'll likely find yourself skipping most of them before long. Across all the game's modes, you'll earn stars, which can be used to unlock a wide range of concept art -- another nice touch.

If there's one thing we can say about Wargroove, it's that it's a very robust package. It has pretty much everything you could ask for in a relatively simplistic turn based strategy game, and it pulls most of it off rather well. We did notice some instances of audio skipping, which can be a little distracting, but other than that the port seems solid.

Conclusion

Wargroove is finally on PS4, and despite launching with practically no fanfare, it's very much worthy of your attention. The pixelated exterior houses surprisingly deep tactical gameplay that's easy to grasp but will soon give your grey matter a workout. With highly customisable difficulty and a vast range of modes to enjoy, this is a decent turn based strategy game that fans of the genre shouldn't pass up -- although we suspect many will have played it to death already.

Having grown up alongside PlayStation, Stephen has developed a wide knowledge of video games, from AAA blockbusters to the smallest indie gems. He also has the Platinum for The Witness, so there’s that.

I was very excited to play this, but I have to say that my interest has also waned somewhat. It's a shame all around because the game is clearly great and it doesn't sound like the delay was down to the developer at all.

I opted to fully play through Advance Wars: Days of Ruin instead of downloading this when I got a hankering to play AW, and I don't really regret my choice. I think I'll be able to fully appreciate this whenever I get around to it instead of constantly comparing it to AW. Also, like my DoR playthrough, the online will likely be completely dead by then!

I thought Sony lightened up on the crossplay thing. What happened? Did they just enable it for a few games and then go back to status quo once the outrage culture moved on to something else (like the new Pokemon games, LOL)?

@Quintumply Wasn't particularly interested until I read your review so well done there. No intention of paying full price but I do now see it as something I will enjoy if i get it on sale at some point. Any similarities to Advance Wars? Certainly looks similar.

@Powerpellet I've always felt that way. Great games are great games, regardless of when they come. DOOM on Switch. Wargroove on PS4. NieR: Automata on Xbone. It's always exciting when a fantastic game you've never played comes to your preferred platform.

I also frequently and happily play very old games.

It's fine to get lost in the excitement of brand new releases, but, at the end of the day, what's important is the quality of the game itself.

@Ralizah
Im not really trying to play what the cool people are playing because I'm the cool person and Im probably not playing the latest game.
Every game I get is a new release on MY console.
I dont need to live a concurrent transitory gaming experience with others so I can't see assigning a value to a game because others have played it already .It just seems silly.

I don’t really get the mentality of “my interest has waned” on this just because it’s released later than other versions. I mean you are either into it or not, why does the timescale of playing it matter?

I played God of War for the first time recently and just because I didn’t play it at launch, I wasn’t any less excited about it, nor did I enjoy it any less.

Seems like a strange thing to complain about. Who cares if other people are buzzed about it. They’re not playing it, you are!

@Dodoo - I totes agree with this, why on earth would you criticise a game for being released on a completely different console 6 months prior? I don't (and many others too I imagine) don't have a Switch, so it's a moot point... I haven't played Days Gone yet but when I do, it won't matter that every else has 'played it to death' already.. what's that got to do with the game itself or its quality? It's a poor perspective to review from... :/

To be clear, Wargroove's late arrival on PS4 didn't affect my feelings on the game itself, or the score. I just wanted to get all my thoughts across in the review, and one of them is that it feels very much like PS4 owners have largely moved on, rightly or wrongly.

Fair enough if you'd rather this sort of thing is kept out of reviews. Appreciate the feedback, as always Thanks all. Go play Wargroove!